Friday, August 23, 2013

Light my fire

Whenever I'm asked to discuss how I came to write a particular story, I often have nothing worthwhile to say. So, when I read another writer's long, involved treatise about the creation of a story, I want to shout, "Bullshit!"

I suspect the bulk of those treatises are after-the-fact justifications written to appease readers who don't know any better or written as some sort of delusional marketing attempt. I can't recall story creation ever involving that much angst.

So, where do stories come from?

Let's call it a story spark. Some potentially insignificant thing sparks a story and, like a fire, the story grows from the kindling surrounding it.

For example, the spark might be an editor asking for a mystery set in Times Square, a call for submissions requesting ghost stories involving coal mining, or a magazine's regular use of holiday-themed women's stories.

Sometimes the spark catches fire immediately and I sit down to write. Sometimes it burns like an ember for several days before catching fire. Either way the story grows from that spark in the same way a fire grows: it engulfs the flammable story material around it.

My flammable story material comes from all I have done and all I have read and all I have studied, and it has piled up awaiting a story spark to ignite it. But I don't usually construct the story fire as I would a campfire.

Because my story fires are more like wildfires than campfires, I am often unable to discuss how I wrote any particular story. I just wrote it.

All the material was there waiting for a spark. When the spark came, so did the story.

2 comments:

Years ago, I had an idea for a couple of characters and a motive for an Agatha Christie-type whodunit. I put it aside and didn't think much about it any more.

Years later, I was reading a whodunit - I think it was Philip MacDonald's THE RASP - and I got an idea for how to open my Christie book. I sat down and wrote the first 800 words. Now I'm maybe a couple thousand words from finishing the first draft.

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About Me

Author of 11 books and more than 1,500 shorter pieces (including more than 1,200 short stories), Michael Bracken also edits crime fiction anthologies. He is recipient of the 2016 Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer lifetime achievement award for short mystery fiction. His “Dreams Unborn” was named one of the best mystery short stories of the year by the editors of The Best American Mystery Stories 2005, “All My Yesterdays” and "Getting Out of the Box" received Derringer Awards, “Cuts Like a Knife” was short-listed for the Derringer Award, “Of Memories Dying” appeared on the preliminary ballot for the Nebula Award, and he has received many awards for advertising copywriting. Stories from his anthologies have been short-listed for the Anthony, Derringer, Edgar, and Shamus awards. Former Vice President of the Private Eye Writers of America and former VP of the Mystery Writers of America’s Southwest Chapter, Bracken is also an active member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and for many years was an active member of the Horror Writers Association. Additional information is available at www.CrimeFictionWriter.com.